The one thing I did not like about the design was that this game is like a single player game with optional multiplayer. You can solo just about everything except dungeons. The art and immersion of this game is great though.
Considering the way many enjoy their gameplay if they did go the other route chances are there would be more complaints. I mean look at how many mmos ended up nerfing a lot of their group content due to people bitching there was too muc group content.
This is one of the few areas I feel for the devs. Because no matter how they set up their gameplay one group or another always ends up being pissed about it or complaining it would be better the other way. Amazing considering how solo friendly mmos are anymore as it is.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
i just dont think finding a cabal would even help in this case, because questing with someone else is not really in this games design.
i bought the game thinking i could do something other then just quest to advance, i guess i was just plain wrong. if there are no rewards for pvp then playing the game all day alone doesnt seem to justify any "end game" for me.
i just dont enjoy running around alone in an mmo, it kinda saddens me that so many mmoers like this type of gameplay.
im kinda at a loss for words on how unenjoyable this game has been for me in my first 24 hours of played time.m
If I may be blunt, there's been a lot of MMOs made for players like yourself. As other have said, there's nothing stopping you from joining up with other people to do these quests. I pop in and help others all the time even when I'm not grouping with them because I feel that if I was really in a land of zombies that is what I would do. I don't need some "extra "reward for doing that. The attitude of some gamers that they need some game given reward for doing something is IMO what is wrong with this genre. What ever happened to doing something because you find it fun in its own right? There are times that I'll spend a few hours doing nothing but defend the sheriff station from zombie attacks because I enjoy doing it. The game offers a lot of freedom to do your own thing and explore.
Yes, the advancement is slow, but after years of mindless questing and easy leveling its refreshing to play a game that throws a few curves at you. I love the fact that I 'm hitting barriers and having to rethink my tactics or group up to complete a quest. The AI in this game is remarkable. I'm no longer attacking stick figures that stand in one spot all day, I actuallly have enemies coming at me from all directions and the world feels so much more alive because of it.
In short, if you're one of those players that likes to zip to end game, this is not the game for you. There are too many missions that require you to think and too many mobs that require you to change up your strategies for that to happen.
I can't agree with any of that, the advancement in this game is not slow at all so I disagree with you and the OP on that point.
If you are able to advance faster than in other games you have played then good for you. For me, this is the slowest advancing game I have ever played. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but that's how it is. After having this game for five days and playing it at a couple of hours a day I'm still in Kingsmouth. In most other games I'd already be at level 20-30 by this point.
I don't think the OP wants rewards thrown at him for doing certain things either I have no idea where you came up with that one.
He specifically mejntioned rewards in his post.
I like this game but it does not offer a lot of freedom to advance your character, it has all the standard ways any modern MMO has, pvp, dungeons and quests. As for there being a lot of things to explore I would disagree, the zones are very well made but theres nothing really great about exploring them, your quests will take you to pretty much every part of the zones anyway so there really isn't anything hidden or a world to explore just zones connected by loading screens. The cities are even worse for exploring, I understand they are simply hub areas but they are tiny and offer no value to exploring.
The basic assumption that people that don't like this game are too thick to understand or "get" the investigation quests is condescending to the max, not everyone that dislikes the game doesn't have the brainpower to work out simple puzzles.
Nowhere was I saying anything like that. I was making the point that the missions( not just investigations) are too difficult to just speed through. YOu can't create a cookie cutter class and speed through everything like you can in TOR or WOW. Not all mobs are the same, so you have to change your tactis if you want to succeed. It takes time to figure out the skill wheel because diffferent skills work with different combinations. Basically my point is this NOT a game you can pick up and play like WOW,TOR, LOTRO or similiar types where everything is explained and handed to you on a silver platter. Some players like that and those are the people that will never get into this game. If that seems condenscending then so be it. I'm just telling it like it is.
You can complete quest content faster with a group, but you usually don't need one. The quests do get harder after the first initial two zones - especially if you have chosen a poor build, i.e. no synergy. There is a dungeon in every zone that offers a hefty amount of experience the first time you run it and a decent amount on subsequent runs and you must have a full group or a a couple of heavily geared friends to help out.
As far as progression after you 'finish the game', which would be completing most quests and the main story quest, is to either PvP or continue doing dungeons on Elite. Once you have finished all the Elite dungeons once and are the appropriate faction rank, I think 12 or 13, then you can face the Gatekeeper. This is a solo fight and meant to gauge if you are ready for the Nightmare dungeons. This can be fairly frustrating to people who don't understand what has previously taken place in the dungeons or what could have happened differently to make it easier for their groups.
So you are doing Nightmare dungeons and continuing to fill out your Ability Wheel, which will take a very long time by the way unless you speed through some easy instances over and over and over. What now? Well Nightmare dungeons, their three open now, drop only maximum 10.2 loot which is only found on the final bosses which are not easy for newcomers to Nightmare. So you take your Bullion Marks you earn from killing bosses and you buy gear from the PvE Vendor in town. Now you can also upgrade this gear that starts out at 10.0 to 10.4, which is the best gear you can get at the moment. Then you can put signets in said gear and glyphs. Some signets are very hard to find and are very expensive if anyone is even selling - but can make huge differences. Then if you had used Nightwatch Glyph Kits you can upgrade your glyphs as well. So 8 Upgrades per Item slot will take quite awhile even for people who can do every boss and get 30 Bullion a day.
PVP offers the same way to gear up but for some reason you can only upgrade to 10.3 which makes it mostly starter gear to help you get through Nightmare. Plus their upgrade kits are WAY overpriced when compared to the cost from using PvE marks.
Then what? Well Funcom promises monthly updates among them will be raids, more dungeons and more Nightmare versions opened up. Typical MMO-fare here and nothing too new, besides the ability to upgrade your gear with tokens you gain from PvP or PvE, however you can only upgrade the same piece i.e. PvP upgrades PvP bought gear and PVE gear upgrades with PvE tokens only. I assume PvP gear will be allowed to go to +4 to be on par with PvE eventually - probably overlooked.
-Hope this helped someone. Enjoy your time in The Secret World, I am so far.
The MMO-People have been crying about finishing a game 2 quicly, now you are crying because you feel alone? And that you are confronted by quests that are awesome and fun, but hard 2 do, since they require you 2 think.
The common point here is most ppl always cry, if you feel like bursting into tears, please go ahead, but just don't even think that anyone that gets TSW would care
This has been the most engaging game I have played in years, And I will still play this in 6months because its that good.
Yes its hard
Yes its not for everyone
And if its not for you, don't blame the game, rather look in the mirror and ask yourself...
There is a saying that goes, no Pain no Gain, and this is the first game that gets that we want Pain
Because who would care about you being QL20 if it took you 20yours 2 get?
Frankly not me...
This is oldschool, so suck it
This is NOT old school, nowhere in the OP did he say the game was hard, the game is not hard especially not the questing. The investigations are very challenging and that is good but the OP is not even talking about that. I think you didn't read his post.
Old school games weren't hard either. They had slow progression, and lots and lots of timesinks. TSW doesn't have much in the way of timesinks, but does have slower progression than the average new MMO.
Players that are used to the standard WoW-type game are going to have a smallish learning curve on building a character with skills, how to craft, and the fundamental differences in level-design. That should be expected. I'm really enjoying the way this game is designed, and the different feel it has.
I understand people getting tired of being told what to do (mission after mission). I don't quite understand people saying this game is slow advancement. My god what on earth do you people want a one week game? As it stands people are going to have the ability wheel maxed out in under 6 months.
Aren't you all tired of buying games every other month? If so I don't wanna hear that the advancement is too slow.
And OP's social issues are his own problem, obviously.
One thing TSW has, that new and upcoming MMO's appear to be adopting is giving credit for helping others kill a mob even when you aren't grouped. In this way it feels less lonely than other games.
I remember being in TOR beta and looking upon other players in suspicion in the Black Sun area, because it seems like they're positioning themselves to killsteal or waiting for you to aggro the mobs that are guarding a node that you also need.
In TSW, and soon in GW2 you don't have this issue. Getting a hand killing a mob can actually be appreciated, especially since combat lasts so G-D long. It's a relief to see someone else clearly on the same mission(Jack o' Lantern, in particular), where working independently or cooperatively, grouped or ungrouped, you assist each other in your goal.
Mechanically, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but socially it actually feels much more like everyone is working toward the same goal, as it should be. It feels better as a community. So to me anyway, that's a big deal.
there is always someone watching, thinking "lol, what a noob"!
This is so true! When I see someone circling the drain I first inspect them and see if I can guess what abilities they are using from observation. No point helping unless its a quest mob, since they respawn within 10 seconds usually. Plus its entertaining watching them flail about- as I'm certain it is when someone watches me struggle till the end.
Lmao, you people are EVIL !
If I see someone near me struggling with a mob, I'll click on them (I play without player and mob info displayed) and check their healthbar and faction rank. That will tell me if the player could use a hand. Most of the time I'll jump in and help. And quite often I'll get a "Thank you" /tell, which is not expected, but appreciated all the same.
But those people that do the same stupid thing over and over, I normally leave to their fate.
LOL, I've been that noob, on more than a few occasions. Usually happens when I assume that my "perfect" build will handle every type of monster...then get unpleasantly suprised
Great example of this was when I left Kingsmouth for the Savage Coast I forgot that I was in my new, untested, pure DPS build instead of my tried and true heavy tank build.
I came across the first quest, defend the tunnel from zombie hordes and got totally rolled as I fumbled with my unfamiliar weapons and abilities.
Couple of folks came along and I just knew they were thinking... "what a freaking noob"
They didn't stop to help.
Of course I flipped builds and reran it having no issues mowing the zombies down, but no one was around to see my prowess....
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
One thing TSW has, that new and upcoming MMO's appear to be adopting is giving credit for helping others kill a mob even when you aren't grouped. In this way it feels less lonely than other games.
I remember being in TOR beta and looking upon other players in suspicion in the Black Sun area, because it seems like they're positioning themselves to killsteal or waiting for you to aggro the mobs that are guarding a node that you also need.
In TSW, and soon in GW2 you don't have this issue. Getting a hand killing a mob can actually be appreciated, especially since combat lasts so G-D long. It's a relief to see someone else clearly on the same mission(Jack o' Lantern, in particular), where working independently or cooperatively, grouped or ungrouped, you assist each other in your goal.
Mechanically, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but socially it actually feels much more like everyone is working toward the same goal, as it should be. It feels better as a community. So to me anyway, that's a big deal.
Even though I can understand the appeal of "grouping without grouping", it somehow feels hollow to me.
Ironically, I see this trend as the ultimate evolution of the single-player MMO. It removes the last vestige of "classic grouping" from open-world play. You no longer have to even click the "Invite to group" button on the player's drop-down menu. There's no need to even quickly type "thx 4 grp" in chat.
It's the illusion of grouping, all the benefits with none of the responsibilities.
How will I ever learn to use my skills properly if half the time I attack a mob, some random person appears and attacks my target ? Sure, with everyone getting their own reward from the kill, I won't lose out on anything except the challenge of killing it myself. That other player won't be doing it out of any desire to help me, but simply because it will get them faster XP and quicker loot. Yay, we can all hit level-cap one week after launch...
Can anyone here who is calling TSW a multiplayer co-op and a single player game name one single game where you were not able to solo in? Excluding group content since thats been excluded for all the complaints regarding TSW...
Go ahead lets see the list of games where, excluding group specific content, that you had to group up to progress. Im sure this will be ignored by those very people.
Need to find a new straw man to bash this game. Your combat complaints were better since its an extremely objective mechanic and most of you beta testers who are doing the complaining were subjected to the most basic and shallow skills. Its much less of a strawman than the co-op statement.
Anyone want to bet they dont reply to this? Its that bad of a strawman argument.
If you feel alone you need to open your eyes there are people everywhere...if you NEED to group with people to have fun you can group with anyone at any time and its a very common occurance in the game, yes even for the missions. You see more people running around in pairs and threesomes than you do alone.
I understand how you feel about that "alone" issue OP. I think most new games suffer from that issue. Where players get into a game and steam roll everything by themselves without requiring a group. This was not the case, lets say with Vanguard and all the older MMO's.
From my experiance with TSW I never felt the need to group or chat with anyone because the quest system was pretty easy to figure out. I know that in other areas you may need to group up for certain mobs or quest lines. But I do agree with you that when I started playing, even though i saw other players running around I honestly did not care to speak to them. I know that its my personal choice, but there was no reason for me to stop and start a conversation since the content was very easy if you had a good deck.
This is def a very realistic problem with modern MMO's. A lot of content is being focused on a single player experiance moreso than party. I feel that is something Tera did right, where BAMS and thickly settled mobs gently nudged you to get into groups. However for example...SWOTR/TSW, you aren't really required to talk to anyone if you don't want to and I feel that hurts the games moreso then their bad overall designs.
I hope that GW2 and future MMO's break this current trend. We need more community in our MMO's.. if I want a single player experiance I will go grab The Witcher franchise and have at it.
I hope that GW2 and future MMO's break this current trend. We need more community in our MMO's.. if I want a single player experiance I will go grab The Witcher franchise and have at it.
GW2 isn't going to break this. It is going to be the same way. How much socialization or community you experience will be up to the player.
This isn't the fault of the games. If players can't socialize or form a community on their own unless they have group content forced upon them then...well...rather sad really.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I understand how you feel about that "alone" issue OP. I think most new games suffer from that issue. Where players get into a game and steam roll everything by themselves without requiring a group. This was not the case, lets say with Vanguard and all the older MMO's.
From my experiance with TSW I never felt the need to group or chat with anyone because the quest system was pretty easy to figure out. I know that in other areas you may need to group up for certain mobs or quest lines. But I do agree with you that when I started playing, even though i saw other players running around I honestly did not care to speak to them. I know that its my personal choice, but there was no reason for me to stop and start a conversation since the content was very easy if you had a good deck.
This is def a very realistic problem with modern MMO's. A lot of content is being focused on a single player experiance moreso than party. I feel that is something Tera did right, where BAMS and thickly settled mobs gently nudged you to get into groups. However for example...SWOTR/TSW, you aren't really required to talk to anyone if you don't want to and I feel that hurts the games moreso then their bad overall designs.
I hope that GW2 and future MMO's break this current trend. We need more community in our MMO's.. if I want a single player experiance I will go grab The Witcher franchise and have at it.
I can understand this. Its a double edge sword with solo content. Older games where you needed to farm elite mobs in a group or risk progressing at a snails pace fielded far too many complaints that it was too much of a pain to find a group and you need to find a group to even play. People didnt like this, they wanted to option to hop on after work and play a few hours...not spend 1hr finding a group and needing to spend several hours without a break farming mobs just so you can get 10% a level.
On the otherhand, dont make the game force group play or prevent progression and a few very vocal people are up in arms that not only can they complete the game in a week or two playing 18 hours a day 7 days a week, but also that they dont NEED to group...and without needing to group they are completely helpless as to how to group, since asking people or tossing invites is out of the question.
If you love grouping, and i do, there is nothing stopping you from doing so. Ive never been told "sorry im not grouping the content will be too easy if i do" or "sorry no groups this is a single player mission" People will gladly group in this game, even if *gasp* the content can be cleared alone.
And if your thinking GW2 will break whateve trend it is thats making people want to solo so much, think again, dungeons just for fun no loot, automatic zerg groups for DE, cross server pvp with random people...
I realize that this is a game that really bothers some people and it must be stopped but at least lets be rational with our reasons for hating the game...cant we think of anything convincing or at least realistic?
I hope that GW2 and future MMO's break this current trend. We need more community in our MMO's.. if I want a single player experiance I will go grab The Witcher franchise and have at it.
GW2 isn't going to break this. It is going to be the same way. How much socialization or community you experience will be up to the player.
This isn't the fault of the games. If players can't socialize or form a community on their own unless they have group content forced upon them then...well...rather sad really.
This a thousand times. Besides are you really going to want to associate with the GW2 crowd? Brace yourselves for a nasty surprise if you think the GW2 community is going to be anything, but caustic.
i wouldn't nder any circumstance would say that TSW's advance is "slow".
Games don't force you to socialize or group save for some specific content. That is not "good design" but punitive design for those that don' want to do it all the time.
Games should make teaming and soloing viable, with teaming likely being a more efficient way to tackle contnet. TSW does this for all but the specific solo missions.
I've teamed fro investigation missions, action ones, to get thru sabotage missions even. Which in some cases was a godsend, cause being able to group kill the bastard mob that saw us and came with reinforcements is 10k times better than having to run away hoping the rest of the camp don't jump on you or dying and having to start again 8as walking back to your corpse could mean the patrol was nearby and now you face them with lowered HP...
Teaming is not mandatory, but it's quite effective. You can even end up cooperating with a bunch of random people to tackle a puzzle (like the refractive crystals in Egypt and several others) or to kill a boss on a potentially dangerous camp (like jack o'lantern and several others)
Same with the elite camps in every area. If you try and go there solo, at anything less than ql9 or 10 you won't really do much. And there are a few misisons that send you to them, starting in BM.
Ok so you played halfway through Kingsmouth? Way to put in some time. I also have to question your honesty when you say that the quests are the same thing over and over. If there is one thing I can say about TSW is that the questing is very varied and rarely repeats itself compared to most MMOs, In fact I would say it's one of the strongest selling points of the game.
lol the secret world is slow progression and this is coming from a gamer who plays like 5 or 6 hours a day. If you have to repeat content over and over to progress then its slow. You go ahead in TSW and do each quest once and see how far you get in the game until your going back and finding a second build or third...
Also Funcom does a really crap job of introducing the game to new players . It throws you into a tutorial witha shotgun that is hectic and chaotic for a new player who knows nothing about the game. Then once leaving the starting tutorial your on your way to solo content for awhile. Sure quests are fun if you like the horror genre and zombies and the investigations can be fun if you have patience.
The reason communities in the old days are still talked about is the forced grouping of games like EQ and DAOC. If you wanted to play their games back in the days you had to suck it up find a guild and be social. But companies like blizzard said hey we can attract a lot more players if we make everything easy and solo . Hence look whos the winner? regardless of our opinions here...... You guys can insult the OP all you want about not liking to repeat quests or go out and explore for them randomly but there is tons of players out there just like him that do not think TSW is great. Heck im bored to death of it at faction rank 9 and not even finishing my sub as its the same ol repeat content in every single zone in the game.
Ok so you played halfway through Kingsmouth? Way to put in some time. I also have to question your honesty when you say that the quests are the same thing over and over. If there is one thing I can say about TSW is that the questing is very varied and rarely repeats itself compared to most MMOs, In fact I would say it's one of the strongest selling points of the game.
Yeah...I have to agree.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Ok so you played halfway through Kingsmouth? Way to put in some time. I also have to question your honesty when you say that the quests are the same thing over and over. If there is one thing I can say about TSW is that the questing is very varied and rarely repeats itself compared to most MMOs, In fact I would say it's one of the strongest selling points of the game.
Yeah...I have to agree.
Well I mean sure you have your standard go here and kill x number of y quests but the story, puzzle and investigations aspects more than make up for those. Also the setting and atmosphere are top notch.
lol the secret world is slow progression and this is coming from a gamer who plays like 5 or 6 hours a day. If you have to repeat content over and over to progress then its slow. You go ahead in TSW and do each quest once and see how far you get in the game until your going back and finding a second build or third...
Also Funcom does a really crap job of introducing the game to new players . It throws you into a tutorial witha shotgun that is hectic and chaotic for a new player who knows nothing about the game. Then once leaving the starting tutorial your on your way to solo content for awhile. Sure quests are fun if you like the horror genre and zombies and the investigations can be fun if you have patience.
The reason communities in the old days are still talked about is the forced grouping of games like EQ and DAOC. If you wanted to play their games back in the days you had to suck it up find a guild and be social. But companies like blizzard said hey we can attract a lot more players if we make everything easy and solo . Hence look whos the winner? regardless of our opinions here...... You guys can insult the OP all you want about not liking to repeat quests or go out and explore for them randomly but there is tons of players out there just like him that do not think TSW is great. Heck im bored to death of it at faction rank 9 and not even finishing my sub as its the same ol repeat content in every single zone in the game.
thank you for your reply,
i wish more people that share this mans opinion would post in this thread, for the sake of my sanity.
lol the secret world is slow progression and this is coming from a gamer who plays like 5 or 6 hours a day. If you have to repeat content over and over to progress then its slow. You go ahead in TSW and do each quest once and see how far you get in the game until your going back and finding a second build or third...
Also Funcom does a really crap job of introducing the game to new players . It throws you into a tutorial witha shotgun that is hectic and chaotic for a new player who knows nothing about the game. Then once leaving the starting tutorial your on your way to solo content for awhile. Sure quests are fun if you like the horror genre and zombies and the investigations can be fun if you have patience.
The reason communities in the old days are still talked about is the forced grouping of games like EQ and DAOC. If you wanted to play their games back in the days you had to suck it up find a guild and be social. But companies like blizzard said hey we can attract a lot more players if we make everything easy and solo . Hence look whos the winner? regardless of our opinions here...... You guys can insult the OP all you want about not liking to repeat quests or go out and explore for them randomly but there is tons of players out there just like him that do not think TSW is great. Heck im bored to death of it at faction rank 9 and not even finishing my sub as its the same ol repeat content in every single zone in the game.
thank you for your reply,
i wish more people that share this mans opinion would post in this thread, for the sake of my sanity.
You mean TSW should have rather kept all the repeatable content in the "endgame", like all other MMO's do ?
Instead, you have a much wider choice of repeatable content, and you're complaining ?
Why would you need to repeat content over and over to progress? I haven't repeated more than a handful of quests, i heven't "redone" any area, i haven't even really completed all misisons in any of the solomon island, just arrived Egypt, have builds for tanking, dps, healing, and soloing, as in more than one for each save for healing...
how is it too slow or why would you need to keep redoing the same thing to advance.
But i guess that as for some it was too short for others it would be too slow...
I've only been playing a week but I am far from lonely in game since I see people running all over Kingsmouth and general chat seems to be across multiple dimensions so it looks like barrens chat at times.
If you like running quests then the advancement system is pretty fast, but as someone who enjoys leveling by killing mobs, it does feel extremely slow. It's a personal choice for me to do fun things, like killing people and NPCs, but most MMOs today seem to frown upon that play style. They give you much higher rewards for doing boring things, like collecting items for random NPCs. TSW is no different in that aspect. The quests are more fun than most every other MMO I've played, but they still boil down to performing a random task for a random NPC for a large EXP reward.
I'm not sure what kind of explanation you need for acquiring new gear or advancing. You get adequate gear for the area you are leveling in from drops and quest rewards. The game also has quests to teach you how to disassemble items and craft your own gear so if you need to fill a slot, you can make your own from all the junk loot you find along the way. There are also vendors who sell weapons and items for every slot.
I haven't repeated any content at all, though I'm only in The Scorched Desert. I've had zero problems progressing. Getting thrown into things in the beginning with a shotgun at the beginning didn't bother me and I liked it. I can see some people might have a problem with it if they don't play games that often. Games like EQ, which I played for years starting in '99, did force grouping on most classes. If you didn't want to do this you could play a bard/necro/mage. But being one of the other classes and sitting for a couple hours trying to find/build a group, that type of stuff is for hardcore players that will sit on a game for hours on end. The last time I did this was in FFXI. I remember sitting for 4 plus hours looking for a group for something. I didn't find one. I logged out and never played the game again. So forced grouping is simply not going to happen in any mainstream game. Why? Because then it won't be mainstream due to popularity, with the time requirements involved. As far as hand holding quest hub to quest hub, it's been done and there are plenty of choices out there for that. EQ and others which you mention in the same paragraph didn't have any of that, and it was much more difficult to find what few quests there were. Honestly I'm not sure where your interests lie with the conflicting statements.
I've only been playing a week but I am far from lonely in game since I see people running all over Kingsmouth and general chat seems to be across multiple dimensions so it looks like barrens chat at times.
If you like running quests then the advancement system is pretty fast, but as someone who enjoys leveling by killing mobs, it does feel extremely slow. It's a personal choice for me to do fun things, like killing people and NPCs, but most MMOs today seem to frown upon that play style. They give you much higher rewards for doing boring things, like collecting items for random NPCs. TSW is no different in that aspect. The quests are more fun than most every other MMO I've played, but they still boil down to performing a random task for a random NPC for a large EXP reward.
I'm not sure what kind of explanation you need for acquiring new gear or advancing. You get adequate gear for the area you are leveling in from drops and quest rewards. The game also has quests to teach you how to disassemble items and craft your own gear so if you need to fill a slot, you can make your own from all the junk loot you find along the way. There are also vendors who sell weapons and items for every slot.
General chat is not cross dimensions, all that you see there is from your own server, and people that's in your game "region" as it's also not global but local. If you see people in any chat with a * before his name it means he is "visiting" your dimension, but actually belongs to a different one.
I think FC got way too many complaints from "heck" leveling in AO so they want to keep that (mob grinding leveling) under a very short leash. I always wondered how much slower would it be to "level" up by hunting the thougher mobs in groups, or "grinding" them in TSW. In some Egypt and on elite camps (i'm QL 6 atm) i was getting more AP notices than i was experiencing before, but that could be just perception.
Probably will do that testing once i'm comfortably "done" with the main story, at some point.
Doing this would guarantee you'll get enough materials and kits to craft a ton, tho.
Comments
Considering the way many enjoy their gameplay if they did go the other route chances are there would be more complaints. I mean look at how many mmos ended up nerfing a lot of their group content due to people bitching there was too muc group content.
This is one of the few areas I feel for the devs. Because no matter how they set up their gameplay one group or another always ends up being pissed about it or complaining it would be better the other way. Amazing considering how solo friendly mmos are anymore as it is.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
You can complete quest content faster with a group, but you usually don't need one. The quests do get harder after the first initial two zones - especially if you have chosen a poor build, i.e. no synergy. There is a dungeon in every zone that offers a hefty amount of experience the first time you run it and a decent amount on subsequent runs and you must have a full group or a a couple of heavily geared friends to help out.
As far as progression after you 'finish the game', which would be completing most quests and the main story quest, is to either PvP or continue doing dungeons on Elite. Once you have finished all the Elite dungeons once and are the appropriate faction rank, I think 12 or 13, then you can face the Gatekeeper. This is a solo fight and meant to gauge if you are ready for the Nightmare dungeons. This can be fairly frustrating to people who don't understand what has previously taken place in the dungeons or what could have happened differently to make it easier for their groups.
So you are doing Nightmare dungeons and continuing to fill out your Ability Wheel, which will take a very long time by the way unless you speed through some easy instances over and over and over. What now? Well Nightmare dungeons, their three open now, drop only maximum 10.2 loot which is only found on the final bosses which are not easy for newcomers to Nightmare. So you take your Bullion Marks you earn from killing bosses and you buy gear from the PvE Vendor in town. Now you can also upgrade this gear that starts out at 10.0 to 10.4, which is the best gear you can get at the moment. Then you can put signets in said gear and glyphs. Some signets are very hard to find and are very expensive if anyone is even selling - but can make huge differences. Then if you had used Nightwatch Glyph Kits you can upgrade your glyphs as well. So 8 Upgrades per Item slot will take quite awhile even for people who can do every boss and get 30 Bullion a day.
PVP offers the same way to gear up but for some reason you can only upgrade to 10.3 which makes it mostly starter gear to help you get through Nightmare. Plus their upgrade kits are WAY overpriced when compared to the cost from using PvE marks.
Then what? Well Funcom promises monthly updates among them will be raids, more dungeons and more Nightmare versions opened up. Typical MMO-fare here and nothing too new, besides the ability to upgrade your gear with tokens you gain from PvP or PvE, however you can only upgrade the same piece i.e. PvP upgrades PvP bought gear and PVE gear upgrades with PvE tokens only. I assume PvP gear will be allowed to go to +4 to be on par with PvE eventually - probably overlooked.
-Hope this helped someone. Enjoy your time in The Secret World, I am so far.
Old school games weren't hard either. They had slow progression, and lots and lots of timesinks. TSW doesn't have much in the way of timesinks, but does have slower progression than the average new MMO.
Players that are used to the standard WoW-type game are going to have a smallish learning curve on building a character with skills, how to craft, and the fundamental differences in level-design. That should be expected. I'm really enjoying the way this game is designed, and the different feel it has.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
I understand people getting tired of being told what to do (mission after mission). I don't quite understand people saying this game is slow advancement. My god what on earth do you people want a one week game? As it stands people are going to have the ability wheel maxed out in under 6 months.
Aren't you all tired of buying games every other month? If so I don't wanna hear that the advancement is too slow.
And OP's social issues are his own problem, obviously.
In some ways I agree, OP, in some I don't.
One thing TSW has, that new and upcoming MMO's appear to be adopting is giving credit for helping others kill a mob even when you aren't grouped. In this way it feels less lonely than other games.
I remember being in TOR beta and looking upon other players in suspicion in the Black Sun area, because it seems like they're positioning themselves to killsteal or waiting for you to aggro the mobs that are guarding a node that you also need.
In TSW, and soon in GW2 you don't have this issue. Getting a hand killing a mob can actually be appreciated, especially since combat lasts so G-D long. It's a relief to see someone else clearly on the same mission(Jack o' Lantern, in particular), where working independently or cooperatively, grouped or ungrouped, you assist each other in your goal.
Mechanically, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but socially it actually feels much more like everyone is working toward the same goal, as it should be. It feels better as a community. So to me anyway, that's a big deal.
LOL, I've been that noob, on more than a few occasions. Usually happens when I assume that my "perfect" build will handle every type of monster...then get unpleasantly suprised
Great example of this was when I left Kingsmouth for the Savage Coast I forgot that I was in my new, untested, pure DPS build instead of my tried and true heavy tank build.
I came across the first quest, defend the tunnel from zombie hordes and got totally rolled as I fumbled with my unfamiliar weapons and abilities.
Couple of folks came along and I just knew they were thinking... "what a freaking noob"
They didn't stop to help.
Of course I flipped builds and reran it having no issues mowing the zombies down, but no one was around to see my prowess....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Even though I can understand the appeal of "grouping without grouping", it somehow feels hollow to me.
Ironically, I see this trend as the ultimate evolution of the single-player MMO. It removes the last vestige of "classic grouping" from open-world play. You no longer have to even click the "Invite to group" button on the player's drop-down menu. There's no need to even quickly type "thx 4 grp" in chat.
It's the illusion of grouping, all the benefits with none of the responsibilities.
How will I ever learn to use my skills properly if half the time I attack a mob, some random person appears and attacks my target ? Sure, with everyone getting their own reward from the kill, I won't lose out on anything except the challenge of killing it myself. That other player won't be doing it out of any desire to help me, but simply because it will get them faster XP and quicker loot. Yay, we can all hit level-cap one week after launch...
Can anyone here who is calling TSW a multiplayer co-op and a single player game name one single game where you were not able to solo in? Excluding group content since thats been excluded for all the complaints regarding TSW...
Go ahead lets see the list of games where, excluding group specific content, that you had to group up to progress. Im sure this will be ignored by those very people.
Need to find a new straw man to bash this game. Your combat complaints were better since its an extremely objective mechanic and most of you beta testers who are doing the complaining were subjected to the most basic and shallow skills. Its much less of a strawman than the co-op statement.
Anyone want to bet they dont reply to this? Its that bad of a strawman argument.
If you feel alone you need to open your eyes there are people everywhere...if you NEED to group with people to have fun you can group with anyone at any time and its a very common occurance in the game, yes even for the missions. You see more people running around in pairs and threesomes than you do alone.
I understand how you feel about that "alone" issue OP. I think most new games suffer from that issue. Where players get into a game and steam roll everything by themselves without requiring a group. This was not the case, lets say with Vanguard and all the older MMO's.
From my experiance with TSW I never felt the need to group or chat with anyone because the quest system was pretty easy to figure out. I know that in other areas you may need to group up for certain mobs or quest lines. But I do agree with you that when I started playing, even though i saw other players running around I honestly did not care to speak to them. I know that its my personal choice, but there was no reason for me to stop and start a conversation since the content was very easy if you had a good deck.
This is def a very realistic problem with modern MMO's. A lot of content is being focused on a single player experiance moreso than party. I feel that is something Tera did right, where BAMS and thickly settled mobs gently nudged you to get into groups. However for example...SWOTR/TSW, you aren't really required to talk to anyone if you don't want to and I feel that hurts the games moreso then their bad overall designs.
I hope that GW2 and future MMO's break this current trend. We need more community in our MMO's.. if I want a single player experiance I will go grab The Witcher franchise and have at it.
GW2 isn't going to break this. It is going to be the same way. How much socialization or community you experience will be up to the player.
This isn't the fault of the games. If players can't socialize or form a community on their own unless they have group content forced upon them then...well...rather sad really.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I can understand this. Its a double edge sword with solo content. Older games where you needed to farm elite mobs in a group or risk progressing at a snails pace fielded far too many complaints that it was too much of a pain to find a group and you need to find a group to even play. People didnt like this, they wanted to option to hop on after work and play a few hours...not spend 1hr finding a group and needing to spend several hours without a break farming mobs just so you can get 10% a level.
On the otherhand, dont make the game force group play or prevent progression and a few very vocal people are up in arms that not only can they complete the game in a week or two playing 18 hours a day 7 days a week, but also that they dont NEED to group...and without needing to group they are completely helpless as to how to group, since asking people or tossing invites is out of the question.
If you love grouping, and i do, there is nothing stopping you from doing so. Ive never been told "sorry im not grouping the content will be too easy if i do" or "sorry no groups this is a single player mission" People will gladly group in this game, even if *gasp* the content can be cleared alone.
And if your thinking GW2 will break whateve trend it is thats making people want to solo so much, think again, dungeons just for fun no loot, automatic zerg groups for DE, cross server pvp with random people...
I realize that this is a game that really bothers some people and it must be stopped but at least lets be rational with our reasons for hating the game...cant we think of anything convincing or at least realistic?
This a thousand times. Besides are you really going to want to associate with the GW2 crowd? Brace yourselves for a nasty surprise if you think the GW2 community is going to be anything, but caustic.
i wouldn't nder any circumstance would say that TSW's advance is "slow".
Games don't force you to socialize or group save for some specific content. That is not "good design" but punitive design for those that don' want to do it all the time.
Games should make teaming and soloing viable, with teaming likely being a more efficient way to tackle contnet. TSW does this for all but the specific solo missions.
I've teamed fro investigation missions, action ones, to get thru sabotage missions even. Which in some cases was a godsend, cause being able to group kill the bastard mob that saw us and came with reinforcements is 10k times better than having to run away hoping the rest of the camp don't jump on you or dying and having to start again 8as walking back to your corpse could mean the patrol was nearby and now you face them with lowered HP...
Teaming is not mandatory, but it's quite effective. You can even end up cooperating with a bunch of random people to tackle a puzzle (like the refractive crystals in Egypt and several others) or to kill a boss on a potentially dangerous camp (like jack o'lantern and several others)
Same with the elite camps in every area. If you try and go there solo, at anything less than ql9 or 10 you won't really do much. And there are a few misisons that send you to them, starting in BM.
Ok so you played halfway through Kingsmouth? Way to put in some time. I also have to question your honesty when you say that the quests are the same thing over and over. If there is one thing I can say about TSW is that the questing is very varied and rarely repeats itself compared to most MMOs, In fact I would say it's one of the strongest selling points of the game.
No signature, I don't have a pen
lol the secret world is slow progression and this is coming from a gamer who plays like 5 or 6 hours a day. If you have to repeat content over and over to progress then its slow. You go ahead in TSW and do each quest once and see how far you get in the game until your going back and finding a second build or third...
Also Funcom does a really crap job of introducing the game to new players . It throws you into a tutorial witha shotgun that is hectic and chaotic for a new player who knows nothing about the game. Then once leaving the starting tutorial your on your way to solo content for awhile. Sure quests are fun if you like the horror genre and zombies and the investigations can be fun if you have patience.
The reason communities in the old days are still talked about is the forced grouping of games like EQ and DAOC. If you wanted to play their games back in the days you had to suck it up find a guild and be social. But companies like blizzard said hey we can attract a lot more players if we make everything easy and solo . Hence look whos the winner? regardless of our opinions here...... You guys can insult the OP all you want about not liking to repeat quests or go out and explore for them randomly but there is tons of players out there just like him that do not think TSW is great. Heck im bored to death of it at faction rank 9 and not even finishing my sub as its the same ol repeat content in every single zone in the game.
Yeah...I have to agree.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Well I mean sure you have your standard go here and kill x number of y quests but the story, puzzle and investigations aspects more than make up for those. Also the setting and atmosphere are top notch.
No signature, I don't have a pen
thank you for your reply,
i wish more people that share this mans opinion would post in this thread, for the sake of my sanity.
You mean TSW should have rather kept all the repeatable content in the "endgame", like all other MMO's do ?
Instead, you have a much wider choice of repeatable content, and you're complaining ?
Why would you need to repeat content over and over to progress? I haven't repeated more than a handful of quests, i heven't "redone" any area, i haven't even really completed all misisons in any of the solomon island, just arrived Egypt, have builds for tanking, dps, healing, and soloing, as in more than one for each save for healing...
how is it too slow or why would you need to keep redoing the same thing to advance.
But i guess that as for some it was too short for others it would be too slow...
I've only been playing a week but I am far from lonely in game since I see people running all over Kingsmouth and general chat seems to be across multiple dimensions so it looks like barrens chat at times.
If you like running quests then the advancement system is pretty fast, but as someone who enjoys leveling by killing mobs, it does feel extremely slow. It's a personal choice for me to do fun things, like killing people and NPCs, but most MMOs today seem to frown upon that play style. They give you much higher rewards for doing boring things, like collecting items for random NPCs. TSW is no different in that aspect. The quests are more fun than most every other MMO I've played, but they still boil down to performing a random task for a random NPC for a large EXP reward.
I'm not sure what kind of explanation you need for acquiring new gear or advancing. You get adequate gear for the area you are leveling in from drops and quest rewards. The game also has quests to teach you how to disassemble items and craft your own gear so if you need to fill a slot, you can make your own from all the junk loot you find along the way. There are also vendors who sell weapons and items for every slot.
@Cronius77
I haven't repeated any content at all, though I'm only in The Scorched Desert. I've had zero problems progressing. Getting thrown into things in the beginning with a shotgun at the beginning didn't bother me and I liked it. I can see some people might have a problem with it if they don't play games that often. Games like EQ, which I played for years starting in '99, did force grouping on most classes. If you didn't want to do this you could play a bard/necro/mage. But being one of the other classes and sitting for a couple hours trying to find/build a group, that type of stuff is for hardcore players that will sit on a game for hours on end. The last time I did this was in FFXI. I remember sitting for 4 plus hours looking for a group for something. I didn't find one. I logged out and never played the game again. So forced grouping is simply not going to happen in any mainstream game. Why? Because then it won't be mainstream due to popularity, with the time requirements involved. As far as hand holding quest hub to quest hub, it's been done and there are plenty of choices out there for that. EQ and others which you mention in the same paragraph didn't have any of that, and it was much more difficult to find what few quests there were. Honestly I'm not sure where your interests lie with the conflicting statements.
General chat is not cross dimensions, all that you see there is from your own server, and people that's in your game "region" as it's also not global but local. If you see people in any chat with a * before his name it means he is "visiting" your dimension, but actually belongs to a different one.
I think FC got way too many complaints from "heck" leveling in AO so they want to keep that (mob grinding leveling) under a very short leash. I always wondered how much slower would it be to "level" up by hunting the thougher mobs in groups, or "grinding" them in TSW. In some Egypt and on elite camps (i'm QL 6 atm) i was getting more AP notices than i was experiencing before, but that could be just perception.
Probably will do that testing once i'm comfortably "done" with the main story, at some point.
Doing this would guarantee you'll get enough materials and kits to craft a ton, tho.